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The Fabulous Rougeaus
They were signed to World Wrestling Federation (WWF) contracts in February 1986, and debuted as clean-cut faces. The Rougeaus were often matched against heel teams such as The Dream Team and Demolition (who called them the "Ragú sisters"). The Rougeaus actually won the WWF Tag Team Championship on August 10, 1987 at the Forum, in a house show, defeating The Hart Foundation. Jimmy Hart, the Hart Foundation's manager, tried to interfere on their behalf with his signature foreign object, a megaphone. The megaphone was intercepted by the Rougeaus, who used it to get the pin and win the titles. They were announced as the new tag team champions, but the decision was later reversed and their title win was never recognized by the WWF. Nearly a year after this event, the Rougeaus made a gradual turn to heel. An early indication of this came during a televised match against The Killer Bees, which aired during July 1988. Both teams went into the match as babyfaces, but the Rougeaus won the match by cheating. After the match, fans booed when the Rougeaus offered to shake hands with the Bees, who refused. Also during this period of time, the Hart Foundation had turned babyface and dumped "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart as their manager. Jimmy became manager of the Rougeaus to solidify their heel turn and to solidify The Hart Foundation's babyface turn. This was also done in part because the Rougeau Brothers were not getting over with fans, and Vince McMahon felt they might be more successful as heels. The Rougeaus feuded with the Hart Foundation during the fall of 1988 into early 1989, with the storyline being that Jimmy Hart still had a contract with the Hart Foundation, and was subsequently giving his percentage of the Foundation's earnings to the Rougeaus as a bonus. The Rougeaus developed a facetiously pro-American gimmick, billing themselves as "soon to relocate to Memphis, Tennessee" and using the theme song "All-American Boys". The theme song was an upbeat rock number, sung by the Rougeaus themselves, would further rile the fans by claiming their affinity for "whitebread" things like "preppy" hairstyles and Barry Manilow's music. The bridge of the song (in French) admits they are aware the fans despise them, slyly confirming that their ingratiating demeanor is phony and done to mock the fans. To draw even more heat, they would wave comically small American flags and try to start a "U.S.A." chant just to annoy the crowd. The Rougeaus' next big feud was against The Rockers in 1989. The feud began when the Rockers debuted a new theme song for themselves with them singing (this new theme was soon dropped, however). The Rougeaus claimed that the Rockers were "copycats," and hit Shawn Michaels in the throat with Jimmy Hart's megaphone. The teams feuded over the summer of 1989, producing many excellent, raved-about matches. At SummerSlam 89, the Rougeaus teamed with fellow Canadian Rick Martel, defeating the Rockers and Martel's former Strike Force tag-team partner Tito Santana in a six-man tag team match. After their initial feuds against the face teams of the era, the Rougeaus quickly devolved into a comedy tag team, often coming out on the short end against The Bushwhackers. Raymond, who suffered from chronic back pain for years, retired in 1990 and moved behind the microphone; briefly as an interviewer for English-language WWF broadcasts, then as host of their French-language TV shows. He came out of retirement in 1996 to face Owen Hart in a boxing match at the Forum. Category:Tag Team